Fear Factor

Still trucking away on my 4th step. 

When the prospect of this step was on the horizon I had no inkling that fear would be a part of my inventory nor would I have previously considered it an attributing factor in any significant way. Certainly, I had concerns, I had planned, I had made sure things were in order, I took the brunt so others would not have to. These were normal things a mother and wife did, right?

(The 4 M's: martyrdom, managing, manipulating, and mothering)

Within the last year I thought my "problem" was anger, hate. I figured after everything I had gone through that what I needed to get over was my hate for the disease my "Q" suffers from or, if truly honest, days where I needed to get over the anger that raged within toward my "Q".

While diving into this section of step four, what I realized is the source of those emotions is my fear. 

Fear of abandonment, fear of loosing control, fear of things that have happened - happening again. Fear of the unknown, I never did live in their heads. Fears that never were and may never be. Page after page of fear, maybe even more fears than resentments. I had fooled myself my whole life. I has justified all my actions, thoughts, emotions as a natural response to my surroundings when in actuality they were justifications for the fears I refused to acknowledge. 

It didn't even matter if the "issue" had or had not happened. In my head I had played out all the scenarios. The most logical or simplest answer must be the right one. I was indignant and would stop the chaos before it started. So than why would my life be so "unmanageable", why would the one fear that I feared most, the one fear I had played over in my mind a thousand times, the one I had planned against, why would that fear happen? Happened but I remained blind to it for so long. I'll tell you why, because the solution to that fear was incomprehensible and so I would choose denial over that fear.

Recently my "Q" shared a fear with me. On the eve of his 1yr sobriety birthday a fellow AA'r, whom my "Q" respected deeply, with many years of sobriety, also stood up to receive a chip. A white chip. A first day chip. He left that meeting with a realization of the risks and dangers that this disease carries with it. That relapse is always a possibility. For once I didn't have the answer. No words of wisdom or good natured encouragement.

 I can't speak for my "Q" but I didn't feel my usual since of fear. My mind didn't begin to seek for answers to prevent this possible outcome. I was not afraid. 

I spent my whole life in the battlefield of my own mind. I had become my only enemy. Facing my fears  is something of a different animal. It's the part of the journey that doesn't come with a manual. It's one more reason to go to my meetings and listen to others. It's a gift of Al-Anon

Thank you for letting me share, feel free to take what you like and leave the rest.